English Dub Review: The Case Study of Vanitas “Questions”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The party has been disrupted by Charlatan’s curse-bearers and only Vanitas can help them. Together, he and Noe try to assist where they can, but for one little girl, they arrive too late and find her having already destroyed her mother and about to turn on her little sister. She begs for death, a wish that Vanitas grants. This causes a rift with Noe, who questions what exactly Vanitas means when he says he wants to bring salvation to the vampires.

Our Take:

In last week’s episode, we flashed back to the past on a journey with Noe to see how he grew up and what makes him tick. But while we might understand Noe a little better now, Noe is still struggling to understand Vanitas and his methods of salvation. The sixth episode of The Case Study of Vanitas is called Questions, and that’s a good title for sure, because it definitely doesn’t offer up any real answers.

I was hoping to see a bit more of a confrontation between Noe and the mysterious Charlatan attacker as this episode began, since that had been looming over the entirety of last week’s episode and the ending teased a connection between them. Unfortunately, Charlatan just creates a bunch of curse-bearers and then says ‘peace out’ and vanishes. Instead of being a confrontation between good and evil, it soon turns into a confrontation between Noe and Vanitas.

When Vanitas and Noe don’t arrive in time to assist the nice family from the party, things get real tense real quick. It’s understandable that Noe would be a bit put out seeing Vanitas turn a child into dust with hardly a moment’s hesitation, but I can’t help but feel like this conflict is very dumb in the way it’s manufactured. Vanitas was doing the girl a kindness, and even though this event might be a trigger for Noe considering his past, there’s really not much to explain about it. And yet, somehow, the two of them don’t have any meaningful conversation for the rest of the episode.

Luca’s rich uncle Ruthven shows up and is about to unleash a can of whoop ass on Vanitas before Noe sticks up for him (and then realizes midway through that he doesn’t really know if he should be sticking up for him or not). Ruthven kindly lets the two of them stay under his protection for now. While he’s recovering, Noe starts thinking about Vanitas and how he has no idea what his mission is even about? Vanitas might be offering “salvation”, but Noe says he has no idea what he means by that. And when he asks Vanitas, the human replies that he “doesn’t know” and Noe should interpret it however he wants, which is just, like—what? It’s clearly trying to be a little mysterious, but it’s just coming across as dumb and silly at this point to me.

The flashback episode last week at least had a semblance of a plot to keep things moving. Questions seems content to be like 50% Noe wondering about Vanitas and the other 50% Vanitas evading all his questions. It feels like everything that happened in this week’s episode could’ve been condensed into 5 minutes. I get that not every week can be packed with plot, but next week has to be an improvement—otherwise I might have to turn into a curse-bearer myself and wreak havoc.